Rhodium nitroalkenes

The first example of asymmetric rhodium-catalyzed 1,4-addition of organoboron reagents to enones was described in 1998 by Hayashi and Miyaura. Significant progress has been made in the past few years. This asymmetric addition reaction can be carried out in aqueous solvent for a broad range of substrates, such as a,/ -unsaturated ketones, esters, amides, phosphonates, nitroalkenes. The enantioselectivity is always very high (in most cases over 90% ee). This asymmetric transformation provides the best method for the enantioselective introduction of aryl and alkenyl groups to the / -position of these electron-deficient olefins. 

Nitroalkenes are good candidates for the rhodium-catalyzed asymmetric 1,4-addition of organoboronic acids. Hayashi et al. reported that the reaction of 1-nitrocyclohexene with phenylboronic acid in the presence of rhodium/ -BINAP catalyst gave 99% ee of 2-phenyl-1-nitrocyclohexane (Scheme 38).117... 

Besides rhodium catalysts, palladium complex also can catalyze the addition of aryltrialkoxysilanes to a,(3-unsaturated carbonyl compounds (ketones, aldehydes) and nitroalkenes (Scheme 60).146 The addition of equimolar amounts of SbCl3 and tetrabutylammonium fluoride (TBAF) was necessary for this reaction to proceed smoothly. The arylpalladium complex, generated by the transmetallation from a putative hypercoordinate silicon compound, was considered to be the catalytically active species. 

For the transfer of arj l and alkenyl groups to enones, Hayashi s procedure, employing the corresponding boronic adds and a rhodium-BINAP catalyst, is the method of choice at present [24, 25]. For the transfer of alkyl groups to cydic enones the use of dialkylzinc reagents in the presence of copper-phosphoramidite catalysts is superior. Although the first examples of hi ly enantiosdective 1,4-ad-ditions of R Zn reagents to nitroalkenes have been reported, similar catalytic methods for numerous other dasses of a, -unsaturated compounds still need to be devdoped. 

Rhodium carbonyl complexes are used as catalyst precursors in the hydroformyla-tion reaction Since rhodium catalysts are two to four orders of magnitude more efficient than cobalt-based ones, they are used to carry out hydroformylation of kineti-cally inert olefins, such as styrene and nitroalkenes. ... 

Access to a 1,4-dicarbonyl substrate has been realised in several ways. Examples include alkylation of imines with 2-alkoxy-allyl halides (equivalents of 2-halo-ketones),addition of /3-ketoester anions to nitroalkenes, followed by Nef reaction,and rhodium-catalysed carbonylation of 2-substituted acrolein acetals. The dialdehyde (as a mono-acetal) necessary for a synthesis of diethyl furan-3,4-dicarboxylate was obtained by two successive Claisen condensations between diethyl succinate and ethyl formate, as shown in the sequence below. 

Hayashi has reported a wide range of reactions employing rhodium with chiral binaphthylphosphine ligands, for example in the asymmetric 1,4-addition of boronic acids and triarylboranes to various unsaturated starting materials a,p-unsaturated ketones, esters, 1-alkenylphosphonates, nitroalkenes and 5,6-dihydro-2(lH)-pyridinones. ... 

Hayashi, T. Senda, T Ogasawara, M. Rhodium-Catalyzed Asymmetric Conjugate Addition of Organoboronic Acids to Nitroalkenes. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2000,122,10716-10717. 

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